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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I was emailing with Lisa yesterday about life. She had written a post about how it feels like life is just a series of fighting the same fights, worrying the same worries, getting through it, most of "it" being not particularly fun or pleasant. I felt like it described my life to a "t."

So much of it is just a slog, getting through chores, making sure everyone is fed and bathed and cared for, and then cleaning up the endless messes. The endless dishes. The endless laundry. The endless bills that, right now, seem to exceed our ability to pay them.

And then last night I found out that one of my cousins had died (he's actually my mom's first cousin, so he's once-removed from me). He was in his 80s and had been sick for a long time, but he had actually been doing really well, so it was a bit of a surprise. He was one of the DC cousins (as opposed to the Michigan cousins), and he was always fun to talk to. Quick with a dirty joke or an inappropriate remark, big sports fan, smart, and far kinder and more generous than he would ever let on. He and Zeke even shared a birthday, so there was that little connection. I will miss him.

And his son (my second cousin) has aggressive brain cancer and probably doesn't have much longer left.

Shitty times for their family.

And there's my brother, whose middle daughter needs a heart procedure sometime soon. She was born with a heart condition and recently had a test that the doctors weren't thrilled with. The procedure shouldn't be a big deal, but still. It's their kid. And it's only a year after almost losing one of their other kids.

It's hard.

As always, there are glimmers, points of light (geez, I never thought I'd be borrowing a phrase from former Pres. Bush (H.W., not W, obvs)). My goofy-ass children bouncing around and hugging each other on the couch. My sweet husband. My fledgling Beachbody business (I started getting checks after the first week - not huge ones yet, but they're growing). The roof over my head, care of a beautiful old house that will some day be really beautiful. My health, and in particular, my shrinking waistline. My generous parents and my wonderful friends and family.

Lisa and I didn't solve any of the world's problems with our email exchange, or even any of our own, most probably. But as always, it's nice to connect with an old friend. So there's that, too.

4 comments:

No one ever tells you that sometimes life will be like this for the majority of people (unless you, say, win the lottery, but I hear even that doesn't do it). It is comforting to know that it's like this for other people, though. Here's to slogging through, and really appreciating those points of light ;)

Amen, sister. Honestly, I feel like kids today (did I just actually say that?) and our society in general has an overdeveloped sense of entitlement to happiness, and easy happiness at that. And the truth is, for most people in the world, and throughout history, it has been a fleeting thing at best. When Thomas Hobbes wrote that the life of man in his natural state is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," he had it about right.